If life gives you gourds, paint them. A few of months ago, while working in our small backyard garden my wife and I found a couple of suspicious plants. They looked similar to the cantaloupe plants that were growing a few feet away in another bed, but we hadn't planted anything in that spot. We thought these unidentified tendrils could be melons, squash or pumpkins. We decided to let it grow and see what it developed into.

Gourd #2 - Oil on canvas 8 x 6 in

A lot of watering and some weeding later, we had beautiful (inedible?) gourds. I didn't know what to do with them but paint them. At first, I thought I would add a few gourds in a large still life, but these gourds had such beautiful lines and patterns that I decided to do a couple of paintings using just one gourd setting it up in different positions.

Gourd #3 - Oil on canvas 8 x 6 in

As I was about to start the third painting, I had the idea of filming the process. I have seen many painting tutorials on Youtube and I wanted to try it out for myself. As this was my first attempt at filming the painting process, you'll notice some glitches. For my next video attempt, I'll be more careful with camera placement so my head doesn't block the canvas. I hope viewers can get the general idea of how this painting was created from start to finish, with the exception of the first step of drawing on the canvas (I had already completed that step before I got the idea to video the process!) Here's the video, if you can't see it click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acKxQF_z-jg to watch it on YouTube.